NATIONAL BUILDERS’ CHARITY Band of Builders (BoB) has expanded its counselling services for tradespeople with the launch of a free mental health and wellbeing service.

The new service was launched after figures showed an increase in the suicide rate amongst construction workers in the UK for the fifth year in a row.

The Volunteer Assistance Programme, launched in partnership with Spectrum.Life and funded by BoB’s Big Brew campaign, has been designed to encourage tradespeople who are experiencing mental health issues to take the crucial first step of seeking help.

The platform service can be used by construction workers or their immediate families at any time to get help. Tradespeople can self-refer through the charity’s website and receive confidential counselling via freephone, live chat, WhatsApp, SMS, or a call back.

Peter Cape, Big Brew lead at BoB, said: “Band of Builders has a very active community of nearly 50,000 tradespeople across the UK, and they share so many heart-breaking stories of people who have been lost, are facing some very serious situations or are generally struggling. That’s why the Big Brew came about: to raise awareness of the mental health crisis.

“As well as throwing the spotlight on the issue, we have been able to fundraise to introduce services including a dedicated text service where construction workers can text BOB to 85258. This has proved to be an important lifeline for the construction industry.

“We also introduced a counselling service last year – but we recognised that we could offer more, and the new partnership with Spectrum.Life means we can offer a much broader level of support.”

New Mental Wellbeing Service

The new wellbeing service will support tradespeople who find themselves struggling with issues including depression, anxiety, stress, addiction, relationship problems, and financial issues.

The platform offers counselling, legal information, financial information, consumer information, career guidance, life coaching, mediation, health information, cancer support, autism support, elderly care support and parent coaching.

Peter added, “When we launched our counselling service last year, it was a proud moment for the Big Brew and BoB – but we quickly realised that counselling alone was not enough.

“Since then, we have looked at ways to improve the service by providing a more holistic approach because it’s important that people are able to get interventions earlier or address some of the issues that are contributing towards their mental health issues.

“It’s best summed up by the old tradesperson’s van analogy: if the van is serviced on a regular basis, then it will be reliable and go on for miles, but if it’s not serviced, then the chances of it breaking down increase.”

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